Matthew Singer writes about movies, music and podcasts for Time Out – a continuation of two decades spent analysing, obsessing over and occasionally making fun of popular culture. Previously, he served as the Arts & Culture Editor at Willamette Week, a Pulitzer Prize-winning alt-weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon, where he wrote about forgotten schlock-horror movie directors, interviewed Fred Armisen behind a dumpster, won national awards for music and profile writing, and once taste-tested dog beer. He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife, son and two cats, and spends way too much of his free time thinking about fantasy basketball.
Matthew Singer

Matthew Singer

Film writer and editor

Articles (174)

The 36 steamiest erotic thrillers

The 36 steamiest erotic thrillers

Sex sells. It used to, anyway. Thirty years ago, it seemed like you couldn’t walk into a movie theatre without encountering a creaky bed, an icy femme fatale and Michael Douglas’s bare ass. The 1990s were the glory days of the erotic thriller – movies designed to titillate and scandalise in equal measure. Sure, they were frequently ‘problematic’ in their conception of sexual power, and almost always self-consciously campy, but damn, they could be a lot of fun. And for a while, they could bring in the big bucks at the box office. And then, at some point, they just… disappeared. Studios stopped making them, and soon, sex vanished from the screen altogether. In the interim, moviegoing audiences became wary of cinematic sexuality, leading to online debates over what narrative purpose a simulated roll in the sheets serves at all. Thankfully, there are signs of a pushback to that line of thinking, from the tense ménage à trois of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers to the queer neo-noir of Love Lies Bleeding to the gritty Pretty Woman update of Sean Baker’s Anora. And even if a full-on erotic thriller revival never comes to fruition, the ’80s and ’90s produced enough to keep us satisfied. Here are 36 of the steamiest ever made. Recommended: 🍆 The 101 best sex scenes in movies😬 The 100 best thriller movies of all-time😍 The 100 best romantic films of all-time 🕵️ 40 murder mystery movies to test your sleuthing skills to the max🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time
The best kids TV shows

The best kids TV shows

As any parent will tell you, kids shows aren’t just for kids. At least, the good ones aren’t. Any children’s programming worth plopping your wee ones down in front of recognises that there’s going to be adults in the room, too, and adjusts accordingly. That’s not to say they have to entertain the oldies necessarily, but they do need to convince us that they’re not rotting the developing brains of the target demographic. They need to educate, or teach important life lessons, or inspire creativity – or at the very least not just rely on fast movement and fart noises to keep their attention. These 37 hit the spot in one way or another. Recommended: ✍ The 100 best animated movies🐭 The best Disney movies of all-time🧒 The best kids cartoons to stream right now👶 The best movies for toddlers the whole family will love
The 14 best comedies on Netflix right now

The 14 best comedies on Netflix right now

Could you use a laugh? Geez, couldn’t we all right now? If you’re in a need of a break from [gestures broadly], nothing provides a better temporary escape than a good comedy movie. Netflix is loaded with them – or, at least, movies that qualify as ‘comedies’. But meeting the basic criteria of the genre doesn’t guarantee the movie is actually funny, of course, and the platform is full of supposed laughers that might just put you in a worse mood. Let us help. We’ve sorted through Netflix’s comedy offerings and come up with the 14 best films certain to get you giggling, chuckling, maybe even guffawing – or just grinning knowingly. In any case, they’re likely to get your mind off everything else happening these days, for however long they last.   Recommended: 🎥 The 35 best movies on Netflix right now🤗 The best feelgood movies on Netflix👽 The best sci-fi shows streaming on Netflix💻 The best Netflix original series of all time
Os 100 melhores filmes de terror de sempre

Os 100 melhores filmes de terror de sempre

Um homem sábio e violento uma vez perguntou: "Gostas de filmes assustadores?" A pergunta melhor, porém, é: quem não gosta de filmes assustadores? Existe sensação mais emocionante do que um sobressalto de medo, especialmente se for na forma de entretenimento? Claro, todos temos os nossos limites: nem todos estão preparados para ver um palhaço demoníaco a serrar uma mulher ao meio (embora os lucros de bilheteira sugiram que um número surpreendente de pessoas está). Mas até os mais medrosos gostam de um pequeno susto de vez em quando. O género de terror está a viver um grande momento de renascimento, tanto comercial quanto criticamente. Em 2024, alguns dos maiores e mais comentados filmes do ano – I Saw the TV Glow, O Coleccionador de Almas, A Substância e o sucesso de bilheteira Terrifier 3 - Aterrorizante – pertencem ao género. Mas o terror tem uma longa história, que remonta aos primeiros dias do cinema. Quer ter os nervos à flor da pele? Estes 100 clássicos garantem que se esconda atrás do sofá quando os créditos finais aparecerem. Textos de Tom Huddleston, Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Nigel Floyd, Phil de Semlyen, David Ehrlich, Joshua Rothkopf, Nigel Floyd, Andy Kryza, Alim Kheraj e Matthew Singer. Recomendado: As escolhas dos peritos
35 best '90s TV shows and where to stream them now

35 best '90s TV shows and where to stream them now

Sure, the so-called ‘golden age of television’ is generally thought to have launched in the early 2000s, but the proverbial jar was loosened in the previous decade. The ’90s is where TV started to take big risks. Where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David turned the sitcom on its head. Where David Lynch actually got to bring his nightmare logic to primetime. Where The Sopranos and Sex and the City expanded the concept of what a television show could look like.  We now spend more time in front of our TVs than ever before. Yet it’s hard to imagine a time when television felt more important than the 1990s. Thankfully, if you weren’t around to experience it live, it’s easy to binge the shows that made the era what it was. Here are 35 can’t-miss suggestions, along with where to find them. Recommended: 📺 The 101 best TV shows of all-time💻 The 40 best Netflix original series to binge🎮 The best 50 ‘90s movies🎶 The 50 best ‘90s songs
The best movies of 2024 (so far)

The best movies of 2024 (so far)

For the first half of 2024, the main talking point around the movies was that no one was going to see them. Why weren’t audiences flocking to see Ryan Gosling drive stunt cars and flirt with Emily Blunt? Why did Furiosa flop when the last Mad Max film was such a hit? It was especially perplexing given that last year, the worldwide box office had seemed to finally rebound from the post-pandemic doldrums. Studio fortunes are improving, however, on the backs of some major kids movies and the monster success of Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. So how about we all stop wringing our hands, and begin appreciating what’s been a pretty great year for movies so far, both in the mainstream and at the arthouse? You’ll notice some of these movies came out in the US at the back end of 2023, but we’re basing this list on UK release dates to include the best worldwide releases from between January and December. And there is plenty more coming, so keep this one bookmarked. RECOMMENDED: 📺 The best TV shows of 2024 (so far) you need to stream🔥 The best horror movies and shows of 2024🎥 The 100 greatest movies ever made
The best Halloween movies of all time

The best Halloween movies of all time

Not every horror movie is meant to be watched at Halloween. That might seem counterintuitive, but let us explain. Yes, the holiday is all about confronting whatever fears haunt us in order to be a little less afraid of them. But there’s a sizable difference between ‘fun scary’ and ‘disturbing scary’. A movie like, say, Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now? An excellent film, but not exactly fun. But Creepshow? The Omen? Get Out? All scary, but all fun, too. So let’s celebrate the subset of the horror genre that is most appropriate for this season of spookiness. Here are the best Halloween movies to watch this year, from cult classics to video nasties to modern masterpieces of the macabre. Recommended: 😱 The 100 best horror movies of all-time🩸 The 15 scariest horror movies based on true stories🔪 The 31 best serial killer movies👹 The 50 best monster movies ever made🧟 The best zombie movies of all-time
The best TV shows of 2024 (so far) you need to stream

The best TV shows of 2024 (so far) you need to stream

With, seemingly, about 116 different streaming platforms churning out new small-screen shows, you’d expect a few of them to land. Even so, 2024 has been a feast of excellent TV. We’ve had Shōgun, Baby Reindeer, a return for the ever-brilliant Slow Horses, a new series of Industry, a show that’s gathering fans like a coked-up trader acquiring stock options, another run of outlandishly funny Aussie sitcom Colin From Accounts and the nicest surprise of them all: an adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals so fun, it’ll make you want to don shoulder pads and make out with the nearer polo player.  Not everything has been worthy of eight or so hours of your time, with Armando Iannucci’s so-so superhero satire The Franchise and powder-puff Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon arriving with high hopes that they failed to live up to. Still, whether you subscribe to Netflix, Prime Video or Apple TV+, or just keep it strictly terrestrial, there’s plenty of bangers out there to catch up on between now and the end of the year. Here are our suggestions for where to start.RECOMMENDED: 🎥 The best movies of 2024 (so far)🔥 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge
The best horror movies and shows of 2024 (so far) for a truly scary watch

The best horror movies and shows of 2024 (so far) for a truly scary watch

Three-fourths of the way through 2024, and it’s safe to say this has been a banner year for horror movies. In fact, it seems like all the buzziest films to come out so far aim to terrify. What’s truly great about the current horror bumper crop is that none of the standouts really resemble one another.  Cannes hit The Substance has finally landed, Osgood Perkins’ hit Longlegs mixes ’90s serial killer procedurals with the Satanic panic of the previous decade, while I Saw the TV Glow is like David Lynch directing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Late Night with the Devil makes found-footage fun again, while In a Violent Nature invented a new subgenre that people are calling ‘ambient slasher’ – just to name a few. Below, you’ll find our ongoing picks for the scariest movies of 2024. 🎃 The 100 best horror films ever made 😱 The scariest movies based on a true story 🔥 The best films of 2024 (so far)
The best serial killer movies of all time

The best serial killer movies of all time

Monsters abound in movies, but none frighten quite like the serial killer. After all, zombies, vampires and interdimensional demons are figments of our imaginations, or representations of deep human fears made flesh. But serial killers are real. Senseless, random murders happen all the time, and the culprit isn’t a supernatural force or thing from another planet. Quite literally, it can be the person living right next door. And so, the question is: why do audiences flock to serial killer movies? Why spend the hours of your life you reserve for entertainment immersed in the darkest corners of the human psyche? Maybe it helps assure our own humanity. Maybe it’s simply to stare into the moral abyss. Or maybe it’s because the best serial killer movies try to tell us something about what creates a serial killer. In putting together this list, we’ve paid attention to movies that probe the conditions which, for a certain vulnerable person, can strip all value from a human life. Some might be considered horror movies, others as noirs or procedurals. All of them will leave you shaken. Recommended:🩸 The 15 scariest horror movies based on true stories💣 The 100 best thrillers of all time😱 The 100 best horror movies of all time🕵️ The 40 best murder-mystery movies
The best heist movies of all time

The best heist movies of all time

Movies had barely been invented when the first on-screen heist took place. In 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, a gang of bandits in the Old West hold up a locomotive. That’s pretty much the whole thing. And yet, from that simple premise came an entire subgenre.  A century-plus later, directors as diverse as Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, Kathryn Bigelow and Steve McQueen have produced memorable heist films, proving how durable and malleable the formula can be – and that the vicarious thrills of watching criminals in action is simply irresistible. It’s a genre built upon many familiar tropes – most heist movies boil down to ‘ragtag group of outlaws come together to pull off a big score’ – but the best examples find ways to stretch the basic framework in unexpected directions. Here are 60 of the greatest.  Recommended: 😬 The best thriller films of all-time🔪 The 12 best thrillers on Netflix🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time🌋 The 35 steamiest erotic thrillers ever made
The 100 best movies of all time to watch right now

The 100 best movies of all time to watch right now

Even for someone who’s been mainlining movies since they were in diapers – and one of those film geeks who wants to know what the thousandth and second film they need to watch before they die is – I’m constantly awed by the cinematic canon. From the early silents of Keaton, Chaplin, Wiene and Eisenstein, which established the building blocks for the horror, comedy and action movies we still flock to see today, not to mention their editing and storytelling techniques, to the epic visions of contemporary auteurs like Christopher Nolan, film is an artform that continues to evolve and astonish. The medium has survived the advent of telly, the arrival of streaming and the filmography of Pauly Shore, and I’m optimistic it will continue to blow us away for decades to come. So what are those definitive masterpieces that continue to dazzle and delight many years after they first came out? Our team of experienced film writers debated, squabbled like kids and finally parsed down thousands of choices into a list of a mere hundred. It’s totally subjective, of course, but we believe this century of classics belongs in the pantheon. And even if you disagree with the picks, my hope is that every one of them will spark joy – whether for new viewers or anyone looking to revisit them. Possibly for the umpteenth time in the case of The Godfather, Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark and a few others. Have a browse and share your thoughts with us on social media.  🔥 The best films of 2024 (so f

News (13)

The 10 best election movies for a presidential film night

The 10 best election movies for a presidential film night

Well, here we are. America has arrived at the moment of truth – the most important presidential election in our lifetime. Sure, they seem to say that about every election, but in this case, it’s probably true, given that democracy itself is seemingly hanging in the balance. Whether or not the results actually end up confirming the country’s slide into totalitarianism, it’s a big deal regardless.   Need to prepare yourself? These movies should help put things in perspective. Not all of them are about presidential politics per se, but they are focused on the democratic process and the machinations and maneuverings that accompany it. We’d like to say they’ll calm your inevitably frazzled nerves, but the truth is, if you’re making a movie about an election in the United States, it’s probably lined with a good bit of cynicism. But as you’ll see, cynicism can be a good thing, especially if you’re hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. Recommended: 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time😬 The best thriller movies of all-time🤔 The 24 best movies based on true stories Photograph: Warner Bros. 1. All the President’s Men (1976) Ah, the days when committing crimes could actually bring down a presidency. Watergate was barely out of the headlines when Alan Pakula turned the most famous act of reportage in American political history into the greatest journalism procedural ever made. Embellishing little, Pakula sticks to the facts – and to the newsroom of The Washington Post – and
The best scary Halloween movies – and where to watch them

The best scary Halloween movies – and where to watch them

Horror, fittingly, is the unkillable genre. Just when you think it’s peaked – the exploitation-heavy ’70s, the slasher ’80s, the post-ironic ’90s – it gets a new leash of life and lurches back at you, claw hammer in hand. Like the transmogrifying alien in The Thing, there’s something in its bloodstream that keeps its scares relevant, keeps them reflecting our fears back at us in ways that are too damn frightening to resist. Halloween, however, requires a very specific kind of horror film: it’s a time when spooks and scares, ghosts and ghouls take precedence over subtext and smarts. With that, and the genre’s recent purple patch in mind, here’s a few films from the last year or two that will scare you witless this week and enhance that gothic vibe. (If you’ve got younger viewers in the house, give this more family-friendly list a go instead.) Our pick of the top Halloween movies for 2024 Photograph: A24 1. Heretic Hands up: who had Hugh Grant down as this year’s answer to the Jigsaw Killer? The erstwhile romcom softboi shows new, darker shades in a fiendishly clever horror-thriller with big ideas and even bigger shocks. It’s not Grant’s first villainous turn – hello, Daniel Cleaver and that cannibal in Cloud Atlas – but when his seemingly hospitable would-be convert lulls a pair of guileless Mormon missionaries into a hellish labyrinthine, it’s a ride you really don’t want to miss. In theaters now Photograph: Signature Entertainment 2. Terrifier 3 Who knew there was such
The best family-friendly Halloween movies to watch with kids for spooky-but-safe fun

The best family-friendly Halloween movies to watch with kids for spooky-but-safe fun

You’ve carved a pumpkin – looks great, top work – you’ve stocked up on candy and decked out the front porch like it’s the set of a Tim Burton movie. But there may be one variable still lingering over your Halloween: what to watch with the little ones? What’s needed is something that offers kids a frisson of spookiness and some gentle scares, but nothing that’s going to freak them out and require you to spend three hours sitting by their bedside reassuring them that Pazuzu isn’t real. Oh, and something that’s genuinely fun for grown-ups too. Here’s our pick of ten Halloween faves that hit that ghoulish sweet spot. (Oh, and grown-ups should head for this more R-rated list.) The top Halloween movies for kids Photograph: Disney 1. Coco (Disney+) Give your Halloween a celebratory vibe with an effervescent Pixar animation that sends its young musical hero into the afterlife for a race-against-the-clock adventure featuring skeletons as far as the eyeball can see. No culture does death with as much vibrancy and joy as Mexico, and this riff on the Day of the Dead celebrations is a suitably kaleidoscopic treatment of the great beyond. The actual Día de Muerto falls on Saturday, November 2, so what better time to cue it up? Photograph: Disney+Frankenweenie 2. Frankenweenie (Disney+) Nothing’s worse than the loss of a beloved family pet. Enter Tim Burton’s stop motion animation to raise the spooky possibility of reincarnating the little guy with the help of a massive electrical cha
Here’s what’s new on Netflix in November 2024: 8 best movies and shows to watch

Here’s what’s new on Netflix in November 2024: 8 best movies and shows to watch

Awards season has arrived at Netflix. The two major new titles hitting the streamer in November have already been tipped as potential Oscar contenders: French filmmaker Jacques Audiard’s bold transgender drug cartel thriller-musical Emilia Pérez and Malcolm Washington’s stirring adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play, The Piano Lesson. But there are plenty of other, perhaps more frivolously fun movies and shows arriving this month, including a conspiracy thriller limited series starring Colman Domingo, the second part of the final season of cult hit Cobra Kai and a film in which Party of Five’s Lacey Chabert dates a hunky snowman. Wait, what? Recommended: 🠜 What's leaving Netflix in November 2024🇳 The 35 best movies on Netflix right now💻 The 44 best Netflix original series to binge🦚 The best movies to watch on Peacock right now📺 The best TV shows of 2024 (so far) you need to stream Photograph: Shanna Besson/Pathé"Emilia Perez" Emilia Pérez Filling the Baz Luhrmann role in this year’s Oscar race, Jacques Audiard’s potential Best Picture contender is ambitious, audacious and sure to be polarising. Zoe Saldaña is a lawyer strong-armed into helping a trans cartel boss (Karla Sofía Gascón) arrange gender-affirming surgery and go into hiding. Did we mention it’s also a musical? Premieres Nov 13 Image: Petr Maur/Netflix"Hot Frosty" Hot Frosty Halloween is over, so here come the Christmas movies. The title sounds like a made-up sex act your eighth-grade classmat
What’s leaving Netflix in November 2024: last chance to stream these movies and shows

What’s leaving Netflix in November 2024: last chance to stream these movies and shows

On Netflix, movies and TV shows come and go almost daily. Sometimes, you may not even know something is there to stream before it’s too late. In other cases, you might be halfway through a series, or planning to watch a movie at the end of the week, and then poof: gone. Don’t get caught unaware. Below, you’ll find a full list of everything leaving Netflix in November 2024, with our six picks for the flicks you must watch before they cycle off, including Tom Hanks as a grumpy old man, Tom Cruise as a live-action video game character, Ryan Gosling as a real American hero, and Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah. Get watching, and live without regret. Recommended: 🎬 The 35 best movies on Netflix right now🇳 The 44 best Netflix original series to binge🦚 The 20 best movies to watch on Peacock right now🎥 The 25 best movies on HBO and Max right now Photograph: Dennis Mong/Sony Pictures A Man Called Otto Tom Hanks plays against type as a gravelly-voiced old grouch who just wants to be left alone long enough to hang himself and join his wife in the afterlife. Of course, his meddling neighbours won’t allow that to happen, and the movie becomes just the sort of hard-to-resist heartstring-tugger you expect to see Tom Hanks in.  Leaves Nov 5   Photograph: Warner Bros."Edge of Tomorrow" Edge of Tomorrow ‘Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day’ is the easiest pitch for this entertaining sci-fi blockbuster. Tom Cruise is a post-apocalyptic bureaucrat conscripted to fight against the alien hord
The best Olympic movies to get you in the Olympic spirit

The best Olympic movies to get you in the Olympic spirit

Sports are the pinnacle of human drama, and the Olympics are the peak of sporting events. Logically, then, movies about the Olympics are some of the most stirring, thrilling and plainly inspirational you’ll find. We’re not saying they’re the best sports movies necessarily – we’ve got a whole other list for that – but when it comes to whipping viewers into a patriotic froth, the best films about the global games do it better than almost anything else. Of course, there is a dark side to the Olympics, both socially and historically, as reflected in top-shelf movies like Munich and Foxcatcher. But for the sake of this list, and stoking excitement for the upcoming Paris games, we’re sticking with the thrilling, the soul-stirring and the inspirational movies to tackle the Olympics – in both their summer and snowier guises. Here are nine of our favourites. Recommended: ⚾ The 50 best sports movies of all-time🥊 The 10 best boxing movies of all-time📹 The 66 best documentaries of all-time Zátopek (2021) Every country has its Olympics heroes. In the Czech Republic it’s Emil Zátopek, a long-distance runner who defied the odds to win triple gold at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. As charted in this stirring and colourful biopic, Zátopek (Václav Neužil) had the kind of mischievous eccentricity and drive you probably need to run endlessly in giant loops – and a romantic spirit that manifests in a touching romance with Dana, a champion javelin thrower. Well worth, ahem, tracking do
Everything we know about ‘Bond 26’ so far

Everything we know about ‘Bond 26’ so far

Gentlemen, rev your Aston Martins and start shaking those martinis, because a new James Bond is on the horizon. Menthol smoke has not yet started billowing out of MGM Studios – the traditional indication that the next 007 has been chosen – but the chatter suggests Daniel Craig’s replacement has been selected and a confirmation is imminent. What does this mean for the future of the iconic British spy series and its upcoming 26th instalment? Information is limited, but here’s what we know so far.  When will the next James Bond be announced? With Bond 26 not expected on our cinema screens until 2025 at the earliest, the film remains firmly in the pre-pre-production phase. ‘We’re working out where to go with him, we’re talking that through,’ said EON producer Barbara Broccoli in June 2022. ‘There isn’t a script and we can’t come up with one until we decide how we’re going to approach the next film because, really, it’s a reinvention of Bond. We’re reinventing who he is and that takes time. I’d say that filming is at least two years away.’Co-producer Michael G Wilson has also stressed that Bond 26 will be a hard reset for the franchise and for Bond himself. Don’t expect any youngsters in the running was the gist of his comments in 2022.‘We’ve tried looking at younger people in the past,’ he told Deadline. ‘But trying to visualise it doesn’t work. Remember, Bond’s already a veteran. He’s had some experience. He’s a person who has been through the wars, so to speak. He’s probably be
The best films out in UK cinemas and on streaming in September

The best films out in UK cinemas and on streaming in September

Rejoice, film fans – August is over! The end of summer is famously regarded as an end-of-summer dumping ground for major studios, and this year seemed particularly dismal. But with September comes slightly cooler temperatures and definitively movies as award season begins in earnest. This month’s slate is light on blockbusters or marquee releases but contains several smaller affairs you may end up hearing about come Oscar time, including Celine Song’s quietly heartbreaking modern romance ‘Past Lives’, the intensely intimate ‘Passages’ and Pedro Almodovar’s Pedro Pascal-and-Ethan Hawke-starring ‘queer Western’, Strange ‘Way of Life’. And hey, if you just want to see Denzel Washington shoot some bad guys, there’s always ‘The Equalizer 3’!     Photograph: MUBI Passages A long-tenured French couple (Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw) have their relationship thrown into chaos when the former has an affair with a younger woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos) in this typically small-yet-intense drama from director Ira Sachs. Having previously set his films in New York, Sachs utilises the Parisian backdrop to such a degree it becomes a character unto itself.  In cinemas Sep 1  Foto: Cortesía Konnichiwa Festival The First Slam Dunk Basketball anime style, Takehiko Inoue’s adaptation of his own mega-selling manga series ‘Slam Dunk’ is 20 years in the making and currently smashing box-office records in Japan and South Korea. It arrives on these shores as the fifth highest grossing anime e
‘The Bear’ is finally on Disney+ – here’s 5 reasons you need to watch it

‘The Bear’ is finally on Disney+ – here’s 5 reasons you need to watch it

Already a smash hit in the US, all eight episodes of ‘The Bear’ have finally arrived on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland. The FX dramedy, set in the kitchen of a blue-collar Chicago sandwich shop and starring the about-to-be-huge Jeremy Allen White, has generated a tonne of buzz since its first dropped on Hulu across the Pond.Created by Christopher Storer, it centres on an up-and-coming chef who inherits his family’s struggling greasy spoon following the sudden death of his brother. It’s earned critical raves for its breakout cast and sharply observed writing, which manages to convey a lot about grief and masculinity despite dealing with some not particularly articulate characters. And it’s already been renewed for a second season. So if you want to keep up with the zeitgeist, you’ll probably want to jump in as soon as it lands on the streamer. And if you’re wondering if it’s worth the four-hour investment, here are the five best reasons to watch. Photograph: Matt Dinerstein/FXWhite with Liza Colon-Zayas as Tina 1. Jeremy Allen White is basically a young Nicolas Cage First and foremost, ‘The Bear’ heralds the arrival of Jeremy Allen White. Okay, perhaps that’s a weird thing to say, given that he just wrapped up a ten-year stint as a lead on the US version of Shameless. But in his first true star vehicle, White shines as Carmen ‘Carmy’ Bezatto, aka Bear, a hot-shit young chef with hypnotic eyes and a wounded demeanour. White spent two weeks in culinary school to prepare for the
Everything we know about Damien Chazelle’s 'Babylon'

Everything we know about Damien Chazelle’s 'Babylon'

Damien Chazelle is returning to La La Land… But the director’s new movie is about a much different Los Angeles than that of his 2016 musical. In his upcoming Babylon, the 37-year-old filmmaker travels back to the Golden Age of Hollywood, a particularly grand and debauched time in the entertainment industry. It’s Chazelle’s first movie since 2018’s Neil Armstrong biopic First Man and the first he’s written since La La Land made him the youngest Best Director winner in Oscar history. And according to Chazelle, it’s his most ambitious project yet. ‘It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve done,’ he tells Vanity Fair. ‘Just the logistics of it, the number of characters, the scale of the set pieces, the span of time that the movie charts – it all conspired to make it particularly challenging, but it was a challenge that was pretty exciting to take on.’ Chazelle says he’s had the idea for Babylon in his head since even before his breakthrough film, 2014’s Whiplash, but didn’t yet have the clout to do something so ‘massive’. He finally started working on the script in 2018, but then the pandemic stalled production. After screening teaser footage for a convention audience earlier this year, Babylon is finally nearing release – and it looks like another Oscar contender. Here’s everything we know about Babylon.   Photo Credit: Scott Garfield| Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures. When does Babylon come out? It hits theatres in select US cities on Decemb
Everything we know about HBO’s true-crime series ‘My Dentist’s Murder Trial’

Everything we know about HBO’s true-crime series ‘My Dentist’s Murder Trial’

It’s the kind of true crime story episodes of Dateline are made of: a mild-mannered dentist in upstate New York is accused of killing the husband of the woman he’d been having an affair with. The murder weapon? A poison highly specific to his profession.  But that’s truly just the beginning of the bizarre twists and high drama of My Dentist’s Murder Trial, an upcoming limited series from HBO based on a 2017 New Yorker article. Written by a journalist who was also one of the dentist in question’s longtime patients, the piece adds a level of meta-narrative that lifts the tale above its sordid, soap-operatic details and made it the sort of story worthy of HBO – and some top-class actors – rather than, say, the Lifetime channel.     Here’s what we know about the series so far: When is My Dentist’s Murder Trial on HBO? According to Variety, the show is in early development as of July 2022, and no release date has been set – and given the recent tumult at the ol’ Home Box Office, let’s just hope it gets released at all. Who is starring in My Dentist’s Murder Trial? So far, only two names are confirmed to be involved in the project. One is Pedro Pascal, the Chilean-born actor best known for his starring role in The Mandalorian and who’s also turned up in Game of Thrones, Narcos and HBO’s highly anticipated upcoming video-game adaptation The Last of Us. He’s slated to play the dentist of the title, Dr Gilberto Nunez, who in 2017 was accused of killing his friend. The other name is Da
Everything we know about David O Russell’s ‘Amsterdam’

Everything we know about David O Russell’s ‘Amsterdam’

David O Russell is back, and that’s something of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the Silver Linings Playbook director’s new movie, Amsterdam, looks like one of the year’s first true award contenders, a high-energy 1930s period piece with an absolutely loaded cast. Like, everyone is in it. Everyone.  The problem is Russell himself. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker has long been known as an on-set tyrant, and the release of the Amsterdam’s trailer has dredged up an even more disturbing accusation of sexual assault, levied against him by his own niece in 2011.  How might those resurfaced allegations affect the critical and audience response to the film? It’s hard to predict at this point. But here’s everything we do know about Amsterdam – and about Russell’s past misdeeds.  Photograph: Courtesy of 20th Century StudiosZoe Saldana as Irma When does Amsterdam come out? It’s scheduled to hit theatres – no streaming, for now – on November 4, 2022. Is there a trailer for Amsterdam? There is and you can watch it below. What’s Amsterdam about? While the trailer gives an overview of the tone (comedic and caper-y), the time period (1930s) and the massive cast (see below), it doesn’t reveal much about the actual plot. The official synopsis describes it as ‘an original crime epic about three close friends who find themselves at the centre of one of the most shocking secret plots in American history.’ And the trailer plays up that the film is loosely b